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Adverts will appear in the press today warning that thousands of youngsters are being denied fluency in Welsh because of a lack of government action on a report it commissioned and was published exactly three years ago.

The adverts claim that 80% of Wales’ young people are losing out by not receiving Welsh-medium education and that “three years of government delay” mean that “80,000 children have lost the right to the Welsh language” since Professor Sioned Davies’ report.

Cymdeithas say they based their figures on 27,000 young people who were deprived for three years - a total of 81,000 since 2013.

An advertisement van will also be in front of the Senedd in Cardiff Bay as Assembly Members debate Welsh language education this afternoon.

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In September 2013, the Government received a report it commissioned by Professor Davies calling for urgent changes to the way Welsh is taught in schools, including scrapping teaching Welsh as a second language.

Last year, First Minister Carwyn Jones said he thought “the concept of second language Welsh creates an artificial distinction, and we do not believe that this provides a useful basis for policy making for the future”.

Cymdeithas is considering a legal challenge to Qualification Wales’ decision to keep the second language Welsh qualification claiming it is contrary to the First Minister’s policy of abolishing it.

“No young person should be denied the opportunity to live their life in Welsh"

Toni Schiavone, Cymdeithas education spokesman, said: “We can’t celebrate the third anniversary of Sioned Davies’ report - the delay in acting on it has deprived tens of thousands of young people of the Welsh language.

“No young person should be denied the opportunity to live their life in Welsh. So, there is a responsibility on our politicians to end the current failed second language system and transform it for the benefit of the 80% of pupils who go through it.

“A complete overhaul of the system is needed, not fiddling on the sidelines. Sioned Davies’ report, which has been sitting on the shelf for three years, said that we need to abolish second language Welsh and establish a single new qualification, based on one continuum of learning, for every pupil instead.”

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A Welsh Government spokesman said: “Exciting work has already begun on developing a new curriculum that will include a single continuation of learning for the Welsh language.”

Qualifications Wales chief Philip Blaker added: “Schools have to deliver the current curriculum and as an interim measure, we consider that the interest of students is best served through improving the design of the GCSE Welsh Second Language qualification based on the existing curriculum.”